Dungeon Bakery Chapter 35

“I already ate them all.”

Gogohan muttered in a hollow voice.

In his hand was an empty cookie bag.

He had definitely intended to savor that last cookie……

He had eaten all five cookies in a single day.

Then…… Did that mean there were no cookies left?

Cold sweat trickled down the back of Gogohan’s neck.

“……Huh. Why am I acting like this over a mere cookie?”

Gogohan, who had hurriedly gathered his things and was about to head to the bakery, suddenly came to his senses.

He shook his head vigorously.

“Have I been deprived of sweets lately……?”

Gogohan put down the things he had gathered and headed toward his computer.

The article deadline was approaching.

He needed to get a rough draft written now.

“‘The Green Necromancer’ must undoubtedly possess a vicious and cruel nature……. Because……”

His company had recognized his tenacity and given him a front-page feature in the weekly magazine.

He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away.

Tap, tap, tap.

The hands striking the keyboard gradually slowed.

Why did his mouth keep feeling empty?

Gogohan stopped typing and took some juice out of the refrigerator.

He gulped it straight from the bottle, shoved it back into the refrigerator, and returned to his seat.

“……”

His hands continued to hesitate over the keyboard.

It was strange.

Usually, once he started writing an article, he could keep going without stopping.

Of course, Gogohan’s writing was based less on facts and more on his own instincts and flights of imagination, so he found writing much easier than other reporters.

Research wasn’t particularly important to him.

What mattered more was sensational appeal.

‘This opportunity is extremely important.’

As a result, Gogohan had gradually become something of an unwanted necessity within the company.

A reporter whose articles attracted attention but weren’t based on facts.

His articles were treated as gossip and relegated to the corners of the weekly magazine.

Gogohan had ground his teeth over that treatment.

That was why he had gone all out this time and chased after the rich fool who had bought 100,000 sugar beets.

And, fortunately, he managed to get a photograph.

‘He probably got all that money from his parents.’

The figure he’d seen while taking the photograph had seemed young, though the picture was blurry.

For someone that young to spend that much money…… There was no way he had earned it himself.

Gogohan snorted.

“……”

Then, belatedly, Gogohan realized that his hands were trembling.

It wasn’t just his hands.

His legs were trembling, too.

“I need something sweet.”

Gogohan muttered blankly as he stood and headed for the refrigerator again.

Thirty minutes later, all the snacks in the refrigerator had been wiped out, yet Gogohan still couldn’t calm down.

He kept thinking about that cookie.

“This isn’t going to work. Let’s just buy it one more time.”

Gogohan picked up the things he had put down earlier and headed for Suwon.

From Uijeongbu to Suwon, Gogohan drove that long distance with only one thought in mind:

He had to eat that cookie.

Fortunately, the bakery was open today, and the friendly owner greeted him.

“Welcome. Would you like some Sugar Cookies?”

Gogohan asked her to give him as many as possible, but what ended up in his hands this time was even fewer than before……

“Only three?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but it’s becoming difficult to obtain the ingredients.”

The owner was smiling brightly, without the slightest hint of apology on her face.

How irritating was that?

Gogohan clenched his fists.

But soon, he relaxed his hands and headed home.

He was a first-rate reporter.

Surely he couldn’t get angry over something as trivial as cookies.

Gogohan calmed himself down, arrived home, and took out one of the cookies.

Suddenly, peace descended upon his mind, and brilliant sentences began popping into his head.

“Good. Let’s write!”

Gogohan sat in front of his computer and began writing his article again.

At long last, after finishing the entire article, Gogohan realized something.

Without even realizing it, he had eaten all the cookies while writing.

“……I-I’ll be fine.”

Now that the article was finished, there was no reason for him to obsess over something like cookies.

At least, that was what Gogohan thought.

Until the next day.

“……I need cookies.”

Gogohan had arrived at the bakery early in the morning.

He hadn’t been able to sleep at all during the night because he couldn’t stop thinking about the cookies.

Even he knew that his condition was strange.

But he couldn’t help it.

He wanted those cookies so badly.

That intoxicating sweetness.

Again.

And again.

But even though Gogohan waited all day, the bakery’s door never opened.

Then he realized.

This bakery must only open every other day.

Damn it.

He should have asked about the business days back then.

Unable to even think about going home, Gogohan stayed up all night.

The next day, when the bakery finally opened, he rushed inside.

“Cookies! Give me cookies!”

The bakery owner didn’t look surprised at all when Gogohan barged in the moment she opened the door.

She simply greeted him with her usual friendly smile.

“Welcome, sir. You come here quite often.”

“Stop talking and give me the cookies!”

Gogohan glared at the smiling owner with bloodshot eyes.

The owner didn’t look frightened at all.

Instead, she spoke in a troubled voice.

“Oh dear. What should we do……? We don’t have any cookies today.”

“What……?”

Gogohan had no choice but to trudge home.

Now he knew that the bakery was only open on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

So he waited until two days later and returned to the bakery again.

But it was the same this time.

“You don’t have any again……?”

“No. It’s becoming rather difficult to obtain the ingredients.”

And the time after that.

“I’m sorry.”

And the time after that.

And the next.

He couldn’t get his hands on any cookies.

By now, Gogohan looked absolutely wretched.

He could barely take care of himself. He smelled, and because he couldn’t eat properly, he had become little more than skin and bones.

It had been a long time since he’d written an article.

His boss had been calling him relentlessly to hurry him along, but Gogohan wasn’t even in a state to answer.

His mind was filled with nothing but those cookies.

Jingle.

Gogohan staggered into the bakery after opening the door.

Please…… please let there be some today……!

He muttered under his breath as he looked at the bakery owner.

She was smiling as pleasantly as ever.

“Cookie…… Give me…… cookies……”

Today would be different, right?

There would be some today.

He stared at the bakery owner with eyes filled with desperate hope, but the answer he received was devastating.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re not going to be making Sugar Cookies anymore.”

“What……?”

“As I mentioned before, we’re having trouble obtaining the ingredients. I don’t think we’ll be able to make any more cookies until that problem is resolved.”

“……!”

Gogohan felt as though his heart had collapsed.

Then would he never be able to eat cookies again?

He couldn’t even imagine a future without cookies anymore……

“How does that make any sense!”

Gogohan finally exploded.

Whether she was his fan or not, all the anger that had been building deep inside him erupted.

He raised his fist high, intending to slam it down on the counter.

At that very moment—

<System: We Are All Neighbors!>

A strange message appeared in the system window as though an error had occurred, and a bright flash filled his vision.

A tremendous shock struck his body as if electricity had passed straight through him.

“Uhh……?”

For the briefest moment, he thought he had lost consciousness.

Gogohan thought with a dazed mind.

Without realizing when it had happened, he was lying sprawled on the floor.

“You don’t seem to be feeling well.”

The bakery owner tilted her head slightly and crouched down in front of him.

“Do you normally have high blood pressure? Getting that angry all of a sudden isn’t good for you. I think you should go home and get some rest.”

The owner said it so matter-of-factly that it actually sounded reasonable.

Following her advice, Gogohan staggered to his feet and left the bakery.

Jingle!

“……?”

The moment he stepped outside, he suddenly realized what he had been doing just moments ago.

He had been getting angry at the owner!

Gogohan immediately came to his senses and went back inside the bakery.

Jingle!

“Hey! Do you think I’m not serious? I told you to somehow make the cookies and give them to me…… Urgh?!”

<System: We Are All Neighbors!>

Once again, a strange system window appeared, followed by a bright flash.

Damn it.

What was happening……?

Gogohan thought as his mind became hazy.

Then, when he came to his senses, he was already outside the bakery.

Every time he entered the bakery to get angry again, the same scene repeated itself.

Jingle!

“Ugh?”

Jingle!

“Gwaah!”

Before long, he no longer had the strength even to vent his anger.

Instead, he opened the bakery door again with a haggard face.

Jingle……

“E-Excuse me. May I ask you something?”

Gogohan’s shoulders drooped as he clasped his hands politely in front of him.

By this point, he had realized that the bakery owner standing before him was not an ordinary person.

There was no way he couldn’t realize it.

Some mysterious power kept punishing him.

Every time he so much as tried to get angry, tremendous pain came crashing down on him.

It was as though she was under absolute protection inside this bakery.

A god.

Yes.

Like a god.

“Then how can I eat the cookies again……? Is it enough if the ingredient supply problem is resolved……? Is there any way I can find out how to solve that problem?”

As Gogohan asked in a servile posture, rubbing his hands together slightly, the bakery owner smiled faintly.

Her red lips curved smoothly upward as Gogohan waited for her answer.

 

***

 

<System: Congratulations! You have completed the ‘Throwing Out a Difficult Customer’ achievement. A reward will be granted.>

As Gogohan bowed ninety degrees and left the bakery, a system message suddenly appeared announcing that an achievement had been completed.

Baek Seol checked the reward with an intrigued expression.

<System: A new skill has been granted as a reward. ‘Throwing Out a Difficult Customer’>

The achievement and skill had the same name.

She hadn’t thrown him out because she’d wanted something like this.

Baek Seol scratched her cheek with her index finger and checked the skill window.

A new skill had been added.

[Throwing Out a Difficult Customer] Lv.1

You can now immediately throw out a specific customer. A customer who has been thrown out cannot enter the bakery until the caster releases the restriction. (Target Limit: 1 person)

In other words, she could designate exactly one difficult customer and prevent them from ever entering the bakery again.

“Baek Seol is a scary human, ppi.”

Lucy had come down from the second floor after confirming that Gogohan had left, and he looked at Baek Seol with an exhausted expression.

Baek Seol shrugged.

“What? I did lie when I said the ingredient supply was bad, but an eye for an eye.”

“But he wanted the cookies so badly, ppi. Couldn’t you have given him just one more, ppi?”

“No. That would actually have made things worse for him.”

“Ppi?”

As Baek Seol had said, if she had given him another cookie, the addiction effect would have lasted even longer.

The addictive effect of the Sugar Cookie had a set duration, though Baek Seol didn’t know exactly how long it was, and it would probably be refreshed every time he ate another one.

Even if he’d done something wrong, she couldn’t let him live the rest of his life addicted to Sugar Cookies.

“Hmm. Still, that guy really is persistent, ppi. I never thought he’d actually decide to go to Mexico, ppi.”

“Tell me about it.”

Baek Seol had told Gogohan that the ingredients were imported from Mexico and that the supply had been cut off because a conflict had broken out between the mafia and the government in Mexico.

She had also told him that the ingredients would only become available again once the war with the mafia was over.

She had intended that as a way of telling him to give up.

But Gogohan had left the bakery determined to resolve the problem no matter what.

“Once the addiction effect wears off, he’ll probably stop doing all that, anyway.”

Baek Seol subtly avoided Lucy’s black eyes.

“I didn’t know Sugar Cookies would be this addictive, either. I need to be careful about giving them to humans from now on.”

“That’s right, ppi.”

“Thanks to him, I somehow ended up getting a new skill, too. I feel a little sorry about that……?”

Baek Seol scratched the back of her head, and Lucy stamped one tiny foot.

“No, ppi! That guy tried to hit you, didn’t he, ppi? Someone that rude deserves to be taught a lesson, ppi.”

“You called me a scary human earlier.”

“When did I ever say that, ppi?”

Baek Seol let out a small laugh when she saw Lucy subtly shift his eyes away.

“Anyway, I didn’t expect the ‘We Are All Neighbors’ skill to be this effective.”

Baek Seol glanced at the skill window that was still open.

[We Are All Neighbors] Lv.-

No fighting inside the store. Those who interfere with business shall die. (This skill is automatically applied without activation. Basic Buff Skill.)

The description was vague, simply saying that fighting wasn’t allowed, so she had been a little worried.

But seeing how Gogohan suffered pain every time he tried to get angry at her, it seemed that even getting angry was considered fighting.

“Heh. It is all according to the great □□□□□’s arrangements……”

Baek Seol casually ignored Lucy’s muttering, as she had grown accustomed to doing, stretched, and headed upstairs.

And only a few days later, news broke that the special feature that had occupied the front page of the weekly magazine was ending early.

Along with an apology.

「I, first-rate reporter Gogohan, am going somewhere where my help is needed for the sake of humanity’s peace. Thank you for loving my articles all this time. And I’m sorry.」

Huh?

Baek Seol scratched the back of her head.

“He really left for Mexico?”

It seemed the Sugar Cookie’s addictive effect lasted quite a long time.

Baek Seol made an awkward face.

Could he really end up never coming back?

She was seriously considering whether she needed to make an antidote for the Sugar Cookie when—

Bzzzz.

Her phone vibrated.

Baek Seol checked who had sent the message and immediately forgot all about her worries over Gogohan.

[Seo Doha: Would it be okay if I visited tomorrow?]